With a background in economics and public policy, I've covered domestic and international energy issues since 1998. I'm the editor-in-chief for Public Utilities Fortnightly, which is a paid subscription-based magazine that was established in 1929. My column, which also appears in the CSMonitor, has twice been named Best Online Column by two different media organizations. Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein. Email: ken@silversteineditorial.com

Sullivan Principles: Corporations Must Contribute to the Culture of Peace and Help End Gun Violence

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: A demonstrator from CodePink holds up a banner as National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre delivers remarks during a news conference at the Willard Hotel December 21, 2012 in Washington, DC. This is the first public appearance that leaders of the gun rights group have made since a 20-year-old man used a popular assault-style rifle to slaughter 20 school children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, one week ago. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

It’s Christmas night and all is silent. The nation’s collective heart is broken, agonizing over the mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. But this country will regroup and the investment and corporate communities will lead the way.

The journey is one that has already been established by the Global Sullivan Principles, which spurred international businesses to disinvest from South Africa’s apartheid government. Before that regime officially fell in 1994, 125 multi-national corporations that include energy firms had signed on and promised to completely withdraw their financial stakes. At its core, the principles ask companies to improve the lives of citizens everywhere in the world where they operate.

“The people around me — my mother and grandmother — were my inspiration,” the Rev. Leon Sullivan, who led the economic cause to end apartheid, told this writer before he died in 2001. “They were poor, but honest. I learned from them I had to stand up for things unjust.”

The same economic potion can work to destroy the grip that gun violence is having on American culture. If six brave women can give their lives protecting their school children, global investors and corporations can ban together and disinvest from Ruger, Smith & Wesson and Forjas Taurus. U.S. lawmakers and state legislators can also contribute, realizing that sucking up to their powerful political lobby is abhorrent to most Americans, who now feel as if they are all targets.

Sullivan’s path is a universal example. The two women in his life taught him that his meager beginnings should not weigh him down. He grew up in Charleston, WV off a dirty alley, belittled by some for being black. But he was undaunted, imbued with love and honor — the same virtues that inspired those six beautiful women to give their lives so that the fortunes of some children could endure.

Sullivan dedicated himself to God, and social justice. The minister would make his mark on history in the early ‘sixties, when from the pulpit of his church he persuaded not only his flock but almost an entire city to boycott companies in Philadelphia that would not hire blacks, using the mantra, “Don’t buy where you don’t work.” In 1963, that effort landed Sullivan on the pages of Life magazine, which had named him one of the country’s 100 leading citizens and described him as an invigorating presence.

The world would then become his stage. In 1971, General Motors invited him to join its board. His mission there was not just to boost stakeholder profits but to also enhance living standards and civil rights for black South Africans. Companies are indeed obligated to the communities where they are serving and ignoring inequities is unacceptable, he said.

Sullivan’s quiet crusade to end apartheid was not the stuff of television news. But his efforts were rippling into the mainstream and causing public opinion to mount against the South African regime. College students were demanding that their schools sell holdings of all companies with interests in the African nation. Liberal columnists were urging a pullout of American companies doing business there, saying that they were sponsoring the divide between the haves and have-nots by filling the coffers of the rich.

GM eventually came around. When it said that it would disinvest unless the South African government loosened its grip over the black majority, other corporations doing business there such Exxon and Mobil followed suit. Because money and jobs were the nation’s lifeblood, apartheid was doomed.

“Governments can’t do it all,” Sullivan said during his talk with this reporter. “Corporations must contribute to the culture of peace.” His efforts earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 — the highest honor that can be bestowed on an American civilian.

A corollary exists between the Sullivan Principles and today’s gun violence that is not just taking place on America’s streets but also in its malls, movie theaters and schools. Gun makers and their lobbyists are determined to sell more weapons and to raise their profits, all while ordinary citizens fear for their children.

When the California teacher’s pension fund, Calstrs, threatened to extract $750 million from Cerberus Capital, it dumped its holdings in the Freedom Group. That’s the company responsible for making the assault rifles used to kill 20 kindergartners and first graders, as well as six of their teachers. Pension funds from around the country have also responded, with those in New York City considering the withdrawal of multi-millions from all gun makers. The Vanguard Group, though, refuses to rethink its positions that include being the number two investor in Smith & Wesson.

If progressive shareholder activism is replicated throughout the investment and corporate communities, it would bring the National Rifle Association to its knees. To date, those hired hands have held policymakers at gun point. But they can’t intimidate investors. The armed lobbyists will assuredly surrender once their funding dries up.

It’s a strategy focused on the flexing of financial muscle, or one that follows the guidance of Leon Sullivan and the Global Sullivan Principles — a cause endorsed by the world’s leading companies. It’s an understanding founded on the belief that corporate citizenry is as important as shareholder gains. In the case of the Sandy Hook disaster, it’s a conviction that the people’s safety is more important than the profits of gun makers and their despicable accomplices, the NRA leadership.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Great examples, but are we to divest video game makers, TV and movie makers, and other media who either create violent content or give publicity to these events??? Now for me personally I will invest in gun makers as long as they continue to be legal, have a good profitable business and pay their investors. I bet there are many especially those who buy and use guns who will invest. Now if we can improve our current system of limiting guns, get current owners to take precautions, and make violence and especially nutty actions unacceptable to our country this will help a lot.

The vast majority of guns are used for legitimate purposes. I do not see anything good occuring from punishing manufacturers of legitimate products because a few use those products to commit horrible crimes.

Might as well punish Exxon because some rioter tossed a Molotov cocktail into a crowded building.

Mr. McReynolds, you are correct. The idea of “holding manufacturer’s responsible” is nothing more than a desire to “stick it to da man.” It won’t accomplish anything except give schadenfreude to some people on the Left.

Your question is backwards. Owning a gun is a right protected by the 2nd Amendment. The burden of why one should not be allowed to own one should be on the people that want to restrict the right.

By the way I am not a fan of the AK-47 but you can hunt deer with it. I know plenty of people who do so.

As for large magazine (the correct term is magazine by the way an AK-47 does not use a clip) I prefer the 20 when going to the gun range. You pay to use the gun range by the hour. If you pre load a number of 20 round clips you spend more time shooting and less time reloading.

Lastly if faced with multiple criminals having 15 to 20 rounds can come in handy.

By the way I appear to have made the clip vs magazine error in my reply. I will just plead guilty. I don’t normally make that error as the correct use of those terms is often one of the best ways to tell if you are talking to someone who is serious about getting educated about guns and not.

I can hunt deer with my single shot Hawken too. I don’t need 20 rounds.

——–” Lastly if faced with multiple criminals having 15 to 20 rounds can come in handy.”———

You’ve never been in combat have you?

If faced with multiple criminals having 15 to 20 rounds—–your best bet is to stay out of sight.

Perhaps you should consider moving to a different neighborhood.

———” If you pre load a number of 20 round clips you spend more time shooting and less time reloading.”——-

I can go out and shoot my 1851 Army model Remington revolver all day long for less than $10. I don’t think you can fire off even one 20 round mag for less than $10. If you really want to save money—-get a Colt or Remington .44 c&b, and extra cylinders(the 1860 version of speed loaders).

As for hunting, any of the old mountain men would tell you—if you can’t kill a deer or a grizzly bear with one shot and a bowie knife, stay out of the woods. They did alright in the hunting department—–and they didn’t need camoflage underwear or ATVs.

———” By the way I am not a fan of the AK-47 but you can hunt deer with it. I know plenty of people who do so.”——–

That’s not “hunting”—that is wanton slaughter. Hunting involves skills—-of which the kill is only a very small part, and completely unnecessary to the purpose of the hunt.

To train bird dogs—-you can hide tethered birds then bring out the dogs to hunt the field. The skill involved is the hunter’s control of the dogs, and the dogs skill at location, and holding point until the hunter is in position and ready—–then the order is given “flush it”, the dog clears the cover, the birds fly up, the hunter fires a shot overhead, and a scented dummy is thrown out for the dogs to retrieve.

Every skill needed for a successful hunt is used. Nothing was killed. Happy dogs will sleep good tonight.

The Sullivan principles were failures. Divestment allowed white South Africans to purchase the SA subsidiary for very little, strengthening the white hold on the country. Foreign owned companies were a force for anti-apartheid. No wonder this guy gets it wrong. Gun violence is primarily about violence, not about guns. Gun control is primarily about control, not guns. It is foolish to think divesting from gun makers will cause a decrease in violence. You might as well divest from Nike and other makers of high end sneakers.